The life and experiences of a community college philosophy teacher, department chair and former debate coach.

Friday, April 25, 2008

One more thought on the debate thing....

To the 'dude' --

Let's be honest, you don't know what you're talking about.

You have the illusion of being on the inside, but even when you were on the board, you didn't work tab at the tournament. It would be IMPOSSIBLE to have you in tab, since you can't be objective about anything impacting your students. What you call being "in tab" means that you wandered in if you weren't judging.

You had no responsibilities -- in fact, I couldn't be sure you'd show up sober on either day.... and you are the HEAD FREAKING COACH.

You didn't spend ONE second of prep time chasing down judges in some strange school - and I often had to chase YOU. We also pushed countless ballots because you were having some kind of issue -- whether it was with alcohol or because you can't handle the fact that seniors get eliminated from the tournament.

Until you spend years doing the scutt work of the tournament, you just don't have a basis for making the kinds of conclusions you do...

FYI, Hubby and I were going to resign this year -- but, you and your students created a situation in which that wouldn't be possible. We're over the debate thing -- and people like you make us tired.

Also, if you love the tournament so much, why did you resign from the board to focus on policy? Why did you come back? I have my suspicions... but, writing any of them here would be pure speculation -- and they are all pretty mean-spirited, so I'll skip that part.

Suffice it to say that we've already had conversations -- and are making some changes. We've also contacted some pretty wonderful people to help us make those changes ---- what, you didn't get a call or e-mail from us? hmmmmm........